The present invention relates to meat products, and more particularly to restructured meat products to be cooked and a method of making that product.
Attempts have been made so as to provide the hotel-restaurant-institutional and retail industries with proportion cuts of beef and pork that are uniform in size, shape, weight, density and have the desired sensory attributes including texture, tenderness, juiciness and flavor. That is, the food processing industry desires meat products having uniform size and quality so that a specific image for a product has a given cost where all material can be projected.
To satisfy the increased demand for meat while fulfilling the requirements imposed on meat production by grain and roughage constraints, several processes have been developed. Among these processes is the flake-cutting of meat and restructuring the resulting flaked meat into steak-like items. These flaked and formed steaks and chops have received some degree of acceptance. However, these items more closely resemble ground products in appearance, bite and texture than sectioned and formed steaks or chops.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,377,597 of Shapiro et al discloses a restructured meat product for cooking which comprises a mixture of lean meat chunks and elongated thin strips of lean meat which are interspersed between and intertwined about the chunks. The strips cooperate with myosin on the surface of the meat to form a product which can be shaped. However, the thus formed product still requires the presence of a salt in order to obtain sufficient myosin to achieve proper binding. The presence of chunks detracts from its appearance and causes non-uniformity in bite characteristics.
In Huffman, U.S. Pat. No. 4,210,677, a method is disclosed for preparing a restructured meat product from mechanically tenderized prefrozen chunks and thinly sliced meat. An essential step of the Huffman process is the mechanical tenderization, preferably four times, of meat chunks. Such mechanical working breaks apart the meat so that the end product is similar to ground meat.
Other prior art teachings relate to the processing of meat in which pieces of chunks of uncooked whole, unground meat are cured, and subjected to a form of mechanical working to partially grind the meat so that the pieces of meat become soft and pliable with a tacky exudate formed on the surface thereof. However, the tenderizing of such pieces of meat is not performed with a mechanical tenderizer, but is performed using chemicals such as salt and phosphates, or the like, and such chemical treatment is undesirable for many reasons. Such reasons include prohibition of use by persons on salt-free diets, reduction of all flavor, rancidity, and the like.